Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

So, who are these Americans that visited Gaza?

The name of the American group that visited Gaza over the weekend keeps changing. Now it is the "American Association for International Conciliation," earlier it was the "National Institute for International Reconciliation."

The Hamas UK newspaper, Palestine Info, describes them as "political figures and university professors."

The picture in Palestine Info shows this:

And here is the one in Palestine Today:

Anyone recognize anybody?

"Siege" news

Israel, has allowed construction material into Gaza for the second day in a row.

Yesterday, truckloads of cement and iron bars entered Gaza. Today, more truckloads of unspecified "building materials" are coming in.

The amount of cement that Israel is quietly sending into Gaza in two days is roughly the same amount that the Free Gaza movement is noisily planning to bring into Gaza whenever they manage to get their ships coordinated. The difference is that Israel is coordinating with UNRWA to ensure that the cement is used for real building projects; Free Gaza's is going to go directly towards Hamas weapons bunkers.

Is anyone interested in asking a question on their Facebook wall as to whether, given Hamas being democratically elected, they support Hamas' unlimited import of weapons into Gaza like any other state?

Freedom of assembly, Hamas-style

Al Quds al Arabi reports that the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights was prevented from holding a workshop in Gaza by Hamas.

The topic of the workshop? Rights and freedom in "Palestine!"

Hamas claimed that a meeting like that requires a permit. The NGO countered that, no, according to Palestinian Arab law, it doesn't.

Meanwhile, Hamas also stopped an attempt to hold a protest rally against the destruction of the UNRWA summer camp facilities on Sunday morning.

Sounds like the Free Gaza flotilla of fools will have lots of opportunity to loudly protest against Hamas' crackdown of Gazans' freedom.

(That'll be the day!)

Gaza has too much stuff!

From Financial Times:

...[T]he prices of many smuggled goods have fallen in recent months, thanks to a supply glut that is on striking display across the Strip.

Some argue that Gaza's tunnel economy is becoming a victim of its own success. Hundreds of tunnels have shut down over the past year as the result of greater Egyptian efforts to stop the flow of goods - and weapons - into the Strip. But the remaining tunnels, about 200 to 300 according to most estimates, have become so efficient that shops all over Gaza are bursting with goods.

Branded products such as Coca-Cola, Nescafé, Snickers and Heinz ketchup - long absent as a result of the Israeli blockade - are both cheap and widely available.

However, the tunnel operators have also flooded Gaza with Korean refrigerators, German food mixers and Chinese airconditioning units. Tunnel operators and traders alike complain of a saturated market - and falling prices.

"Everything I demand, I can get," says Abu Amar al-Kahlout, who sells household goods out of a warehouse big enough to accommodate a passenger jet.

h/t Daily Alert

Lebanese "scholarship"

Al Quds has an article about Lebanese professor Kamal Salibi, who claims that the Promised Land in the Bible is really near Yemen.

It turns out that he floated this theory decades ago, and has written a number of books on the subject.

According to Wikipedia,

Kamal Salibi has written three books advocating the controversial "Israel in Arabia" theory. In this view, the placenames of the Hebrew Bible actually allude to places in southwest Arabia; many of them were later reinterpreted to refer to places in Palestine where the Hasmonean kingdom was established by Simon Maccabaeus in the second century BC.

The (literally) central identification of the theory is that the geographical feature referred to as הירדן, the “Jordan”, which is usually taken to refer to the Jordan River, although never actually described as a “river” in the Hebrew text, actually means the great West Arabian Escarpment, the Sarawat Mountains. The area of ancient Israel is then identified with the land on either side of the southern section of the escarpment that is, the southern Hejaz and 'Asir, from Ta’if down to the border with Yemen.

So if the Jordan of the Bible is proved to refer to a river, his entire thesis gets destroyed, right?

Joshua 3:15-17: And when they that bore the ark were come unto the Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bore the ark were dipped in the brink of the water--for the Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the time of harvest-- that the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off from Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, were wholly cut off; and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, while all Israel passed over on dry ground, until all the nation were passed clean over the Jordan.

2 Kings 2:2-3: And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood over against them afar off; and they two stood by the Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground.(also see 2 Kings 14-15)

2 Kings 5:10-14, And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying: 'Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come back to thee, and thou shalt be clean.' But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said: 'Behold, I thought: He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Amanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean?' So he turned, and went away in a rage. And his servants came near, and spoke unto him, and said: 'My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee: Wash, and be clean?' Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh came back like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Also, 2 Kings 6:2-6.

Guess Salibi wasted a few decades of his life. Oh, well.

Nakbapalooza!

Pity the poor Palestinian Arab. They have to fill up weeks of Nakba celebrations with new and innovative ways to demand worldwide pity.

After all, there are only so many victimhood points available, and Palestinian Arabs are competing with those pesky Haitians and Sudanese and others for their fair share.

And Nakba is not just a one-day thing - it is a way of life, where from roughly mid-April through the end of May the PalArabs must come up with gimmicks that will remind the world yet again how terrible things are.

Yesterday brought us one of the more original and mystifying examples of the annual Nakbapalooza pity party. In the center of Ramallah, a city that has been Judenrein for years - a city that is now, for the first time in history, under Palestinian Arab rule - an actress playing a bride, wearing a 50-meter long train on her wedding dress, walked along the streets:

Traffic was stopped on a major Ramallah street for this display.

Then, the other participants in this bizarre ceremony stepped on the dress:

The reason for this is that, if enough people stepped on the dress, it would turn black. This would be a symbol of mourning.

It symbolizes the catastrophe of Palestinian Arabs being treated like dirt for the part 62 years by their fellow Arabs, as their rights have been trampled by the Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians and every other Arab country.

Oh, sorry, that's not the symbolism here. It's something else altogether. Something to do with Israel, I think. The citizens of the PA - who have an Olympic team, a flag, an UN representative, and more autonomy than most Arabs - are taking their copious amounts of free time to create long wedding dresses that are meant to be stepped on to complain about how poorly they are treated by the Jews.

You can just imagine people in Darfur doing the same thing.

Egyptian/Hamas relations reaches a new low

Today, Hamas interrogated an Egyptian officer who allegedly secretly entered Gaza as a spy.

"Egypt is better off investigating how Israeli agents infiltrated Palestinian and Egyptian territories rather than sending officers in secret to collect information on the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, and torturing Palestinian [detainees in Egypt] into giving up information," [Hamas' interior minister Fathi] Hammad told the newspaper.

Significantly, however, the Hamas official confirmed that relations between Egypt and the Gaza government had been reduced to "unofficial" after the decline in political cooperation, after a week of media speculation on Egypt severing ties with Hamas.

Palestine Today discusses the deterioration of the relationship, quoting an Egyptian newspaper as saying that they are at the lowest level since the short-lived 2005 Cairo agreement between Fatah and Hamas.

Egypt has been freezing Mahmoud al-Zahar out of negotiations over a prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit.

Egypt is also upset that Hamas acted as an independent entity at the recent Arab summit in Tripoli.

Free Gaza - from Hamas

Jameel brings us this nice video:

200 Palestinian Arabs stranded in Kish, Iran

Ma'an Arabic reports about an interesting situation between the Iranian tourist island of Kish and the UAE.

It seems that a couple of hundred Palestinian Arabs, independently, managed to get out of Gaza in search of jobs elsewhere in the Arab world. These people managed to get to the United Arab Emirates on tourist visas, and then to gain employment contracts in the UAE. However, they were not allowed to work on their visas, and were told to leave the UAE and then return as workers.

They couldn't go back to Gaza, and the person interviewed said that he couldn't go back to Egypt where he attended university, so they instead went to the closest country they could - Iran. They checked into some of the hotels in the tourist island of Kish.

Then, when they tried to return to go back to the UAE, the officials there refused to take them in for security reasons.

The Ma'an article says that these security reasons are because they are Palestinian, not because they are coming from Iran (the UAE and Iran have some disputes over other islands in the Gulf.)

Now they can't pay their hotel bills, they don't have food, the Palestinian embassy in the UAE is not helping them, and they have nowhere to go.

UNRWA camp burning: Vandalism or terrorism?

A Fatah spokesman has stated that the burning of the UNRWA summer camp yesterday morning, carried out by dozens of masked armed men, was an act of terrorism.

Osama Qawasmi stated that the evidence shows that the attackers were associated with Hamas - the same people who were supposed to be protecting the area.

The New York Times mentioned yesterday that Hamas has in the past blamed UNRWA for "implementing a plan to spoil the growing generation of Gaza," which mirrors the threats that accompanied the attack.

UNRWA has been careful to describe the attack as "vandalism," not terror.

In a related story, a candy shop in Gaza was blown up yesterday

Flotilla of fools

In January, the Free Gaza website gave the first mention of the flotilla of boats that are now starting on their way towards Gaza.

The ships are trying to bring some 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Sounds impressive, right?

Except that only in the past week, Israel has provided 14,069 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

In fact, in the same amount of time that the Free Gaza moonbats and their friends have managed to scrounge their 10,000 tons of cargo, Israel has sent over 230,000 tons of aid to Gaza, not counting the many tens of thousands of tons of fuel. This includes a CT scanner, an elevator, building supplies, glass, clothing and many other products.

Will we be hearing them talking about that? Of course not.

In fact, Free Gaza is against humanitarian aid to Gaza. They've stated this repeatedly, most recently only last November.

They have stated their desire for violent revolt by the Palestinian Arabs. They have shown blatant disregard for Gazan lives. And in their internal communications they don't consider themselves a humanitarian group or an aid organization, but rather a resistance group.

Just something to keep in mind as you read the upcoming media articles and op-eds that refer to this group as "humanitarian."

Qaradawi calls to "cleanse Palestine"

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential Muslim preachers, just gave a talk at the Olympic Stadium in Nouakchott, Mauritania in front of some 15,000 people.

He criticized the Arab nations for not fighting Zionism sufficiently, calling on them to go back to the basics of the Holy Quran and thereby "liberate" the Al Aqsa Mosque and "cleanse" Palestine.

Qaradawi also recalled his early days with Yasir Arafat, whom he said he got to know while fighting alongside the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1950s. Qaradawi said that Arafat claimed that while in prison, he learned that the Zionists were not afraid of Arab armies but rather of Islam's deity, and the reason was because the Zionists "came to their country to live, but the [Muslims] came there to die."

Qaradawi also called to return to the ideals of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna.

The guy who also inspired Al Qaeda.

So when Qaradawi calls for Muslims to "cleanse" Palestine, what do you think he means?

South African paper threatened over Mohammed cartoon

From the Mail & Guardian:

It was a late night in court for the Mail & Guardian as the Council of Muslim Theologians on Thursday evening tried to stop the newspaper from publishing a Zapiro cartoon featuring the Prophet Muhammad.

An interdict was not granted, but on Friday morning M&G editor-in-chief Nic Dawes and other staff were fielding a flood of angry callers, and even death threats hit the newspaper's office.

"You've got to watch your back" and "This will cost him his life" were some of the remarks made.

The cartoon followed the furore surrounding the Facebook page, "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day", which was sparked by threats by a radical Muslim group against the creators of US TV series South Park for depicting the prophet in a bear suit.

Zapiro's cartoon, published in Friday's M&G, depicted the prophet reclining on a psychiatrist's couch and bemoaning his followers' lack of humour.

Here it is:

The judge that dismissed a last-minute attempt to quash the cartoon was Muslim.

On the other hand, the head of the SA National Press Club, also a Muslim, found it "offensive and provocative."

Gaza gunmen burn down UNRWA summer camp

From UNRWA:

At 0230 on Sunday 23 May 2010, a group of approximately 30 armed and masked men attacked and set fire to an UNRWA recreation facility under construction on the beach in Gaza city. The location is one of 35 beach facilities currently under construction, which will form part of UNRWA’s annual “Summer Games” program for over 250,000 refugee children in Gaza, due to commence on 12 June.

UNRWA’s Director of Operations in Gaza, John Ging, condemned the incident, calling it “vandalism linked to extremism and an attack on the happiness of children” He went on to reassure parents and the children of Gaza that “UNRWA will not be intimidated by such acts and will quickly rebuild the location in good time to host the Summer Games."

Palestine Press Agency adds that the gunmen tied up the guards and handed them a letter, with four bullets. The letter warned UNRWA "not to continue extracurricular activities which are detrimental to the morality of children."

On Friday, the group circulated threats against UNRWA head John Ging in mosques and on the Internet, calling him an "agent of the occupation." Major Gaza terror groups condemned the act, and the PLO particularly pointed out that it acted as a "witness to the tragedy of the Palestinian people."

Almost always, UNRWA is silent about attacks on its facilities and people, but this one was way too big to ignore.

Hamas leader brandishes machine gun during speech

From Ma'an:

Surprising his Friday night audience at a political panel in Gaza City, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar raised a machine gun mid-speech saying "If we had these in 1948, we would be in a different situation."

Props to the Hamas prop department.

Zahhar addressed the panel on the subject of "milestones in the question of Palestine since 1948," and spoke of what he called the "fiascos" of the Palestinian factions and the harm they have done to both resistance and the greater Palestinian cause.

Describing Palestinians slain in the struggle for a state as men and women whose "blood irrigated the land, and will not stop," reminding listeners of early killed fighters like Sheikh Izz Addin Al-Qassam and Fawzi Qawaqji from Syria, Abdullah At-Tal from Jordan and Abdul-Qadir Al-Husseini from Palestine.

Notice that three out of the four militant leaders he mentions were not from Palestine (the fourth was the nephew of the Jew-hating Mufti,) showing yet again that this is was never a Palestinian-Israeli conflict but an Arab-Israeli conflict.

(Qawaqji was an pan-Arab nationalist, not a Palestinian Arab nationalist. He spent World War II in Germany and was reportedly part of the Wehrmacht. He never won a single battle in his life.

(Abdullah Al-Tall was implicated in the assassination of Jordan's King Abdullah I. )

Hamas considers Israeli missile defense to be "terror" (UPDATED)

Hamas' English website has learned the lessons of propaganda very well. They just have to repeat over and over again: good is evil, up is down, and defending civilians is terror:

In a dangerous and condemned step, the United States Congress voted Thursday to approve $205 million in aid to Israel for the Iron Dome missile defense system. The funding passed by a vote of 410 to 4, with eight abstentions.

By this unjust and prejudiced decision of supporting Israeli terror, US declares full hostility against the unarmed Palestinian people.

This American hypocrisy and prejudiced behavior shown in House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman's speech when he said:" We must ensure that our most important ally in the region has the tools to defend itself ".

Meanwhile, the Jewish Florida Congressman Ted Deutch announced that " Iron Dome “could help save the lives of innocent Israelis who every day live in fear of rocket attacks on their homes, schools, and marketplaces".

Here, the strong effect of the Zionist lobby on the American policy is very clear and enough to realize that America is still controlled by a group of criminals who are creating conflicts among peoples of the world to serve their own interests.

If Hamas cannot slaughter Israeli civilians with impunity, that is "terror!"

Now, is there any "moderate" Arab that would dare to publicly contradict them?

UPDATE: A commenter lists the members of Congress who voted against:

John Conyers (D-MI)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA)

UPDATE 2: Only the English edition of the Al Qassam website uses the word "terror" to describe Iron Dome, not the Arabic, showing that Hamas understands the use of propaganda quite well.

"Hamas wants peace, dialogue with America"

That's the headline in Ma'an, in an article that says:

The Hamas government's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmad Yousef called for face-to-face dialogue with the American government and the people of the United States.

Speaking at a news conference alongside Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a delegation of American citizens promoting international conciliation, Yousef credited the delegation with the public announcement.

That's pretty funny, considering how "Death to America" is one of Hamas' favorite phrases:

And who was in this American delegation to Gaza?

The best I could find so far was this:

A high-ranking U.S. delegation arrived in the Gaza Strip on Friday to hold talks with Hamas movement, which rules the enclave, sources in the deposed government of Hamas said.

The sources said that the seven-member delegation, which represents the National Institute for International Reconciliation crossed into the blockaded enclave through Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

The delegation will hold talks with Hamas officials in the frame to congregate views between the Palestinian factions and achieve an inter-Palestinian reconciliation between the rival Palestinian groups, said the sources.

The U.S. delegation, which will also look at the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, will return to Egypt through Rafah crossing on Saturday.

Needless to say, this "National Institute for International Reconciliation" seems to have been made up on the spot. They have no website and no mentions on any site before yesterday. Even the Hamas website doesn't have any pictures of them, and only quotes the Xinhua story above.

EoZ sells out, part 2

I just added a shopping page with a subset of items offered by Amazon. In case you are buying something online anyway (books, electronics, DVDs, toys or music) just go to my EoZ Market page and buy it from there. I'll end up getting some tiny percentage of the sale, and Mrs. Elder won't be quite as upset over the amount of time I spend blogging.

Best of all, it doesn't impact the blog experience, which is what I dislike about most ads.

If I do ever put ads on the site, they would be in their own dedicated column. I will never do those irritating ads where random words in a post turn into links, nor will I ever place ads in between posts. I positively hate that.

The EoZ Market link is on my left sidebar, under "pages."

Otherwise, consider this an open thread, and have a Shabbat Shalom!

Resolution 194

To give an idea of how Efraim Karsh uses real facts to turn Arab propaganda that has become conventional wisdom on its head in his book Palestine Betrayed, here is what he writes about UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which the Arabs always insist provides for a "right of return":

While underscoring “the right of the Arab refugees to return to their homes in Jewish-controlled territory at the earliest possible date,” [Count Bernadotte's] report also considered the possibility of resettlement outside Palestine, with those who chose not to return being adequately compensated for their lost property. “It must not... be supposed that the establishment of the right of refugees to return to their former homes provides a solution to the problent,” the report read. "The vast majority of the refugees may no longer have homes to return to and their resettlement in the State of lsrael presents an economic and social problem of special complexity. Whether the refugees are resettled in the State of Israel or in one or other of the Arab States, a major question to he faced is that of placing them in an environment in which they can find employment and the means of livelihood. But in any case their unconditional right to make a free choice should be fully respected."

This principle was duly incorporated into General Assembly Resolution 194, passed on December 11 after a three month deliberation of the mediator's report, which placed repatriation on a par with resettlement elsewhere. It advocated, in its own words, that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should he permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date,” but also that efforts should be made to facilitate the “resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees."

In tacit acceptance of the Israeli position, the resolution did not treat the refugee problem as an isolated issue but as part of a comprehensive settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. All of its fifteen paragraphs deal with the facilitation of peace, including the single paragraph that alludes to refugees in general - not “Arab refugees" - in language that could as readily apply to the thousands of Jews driven from their homes in the prospective Arab state and Jerusalem by the invading Arab armies. Moreover, the resolution expressly stipulated that compensation for the property of those refugees choosing not to return “should he made good by the governments or the authorities responsible,” indicating that the Arab states, as well as Israel, were seen as instigators of the refugee problem. be it Arab or Jewish.

It was just these clauses in Resolution 194 that made it anathema to the Arabs, who opposed it vehemently and voted unanimously against it. Equating return and resettlement as possible solutions to the refugee problem; placing on the Arab states some of the burden for resolving it; and, above all, linking the resolution of this issue to Arab acquiescence in the existence of the state of Israel and the achievement of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peaoe were seen, correctly, as rather less than useful to Arab purposes.

Gulf newspapers agree they aren't anti-Zionist enough

Just a small indication of Arab press objectivity:

The Gulf Press Association (GPA) meeting in the Bahraini capital on Wednesday agreed on several moves in its annual review of the GPA’s activities.

The GPA final statement said that the Assembly also discussed wider issues of concern in the Arab world, “notably the continued enmity and studied and programmed Judaization by the Zionist enemy in Jerusalem, at Al-Aqsa Mosque and in occupied Palestinian lands”.

The statement said that the meeting called upon Arab and Islamic governments to take a “more resolute stand against these malicious plans and protect Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and Palestine”.

According to the statement, the Assembly also called upon Gulf and Arab newspapers to “intensify their campaigns to expose the Zionist plans and confront them by all means which preserve the status of Jerusalem for the Arab and Islamic peoples”.

They also voted to censure Saudi Arabia for its Muslimization of Mecca and Medina, and they condemned its apartheid system of not allowing any non-Muslims in those cities whatsoever, especially in light of how Medina used to have a substantial Jewish population that was slaughtered by Mohammed.

Just kidding!